The Captain American Way
Let me get this out of the way up front: Captain America: The First Avenger is a great movie. Stanley Tucci, Hugo Weaving, and Tommy Lee Jones give strong performances, as you’d expect. The action was fun and exciting. Chris Evans made Steve Rogers grounded and likeable. It’s refreshing to see a truly heroic superhero. Not an antihero or a reluctant hero, but a plain, old fashioned do-gooder. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a worthy addition to Marvel Studios’ body of work.
That being said, I kind of hated it.
Not really; I’m being dramatic. But it was a little frustrating that the movie featured a story element that will soon be coming up in The Specialists. Now, obviously, we already owe a debt to Captain America. Our Captain Victory, who has finally made his appearance in the last couple of pages, is clearly a spiritual descendent of old Cap. And Panzer bears a striking resemblance to the X-Man Colossus. Hartmann has a pinch of Beast and a dash of Wolverine and Max comes from a long line of robot pilots. In fact, most of our characters will be familiar to anyone who has read comics.
These are archetypes that have appeared in countless iterations since the earliest days of superhero comics. Like so many have done before, we’ve taken the familiar concepts and added our own ideas and interpretations. We humbly acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of the giants of the golden and silver ages of comics. But we’ve added elements that we’ve never seen before. At least, until now.
I don’t really have a point here. I’m just venting. This is no criticism of Captain America. I’m just frustrated that the movie beat us to the punch on this concept, and stole our thunder. Oh well. I’ll just have to try to come up with another original idea. How about Captain Victory is a vampire, but he only feeds on Nazis? Hmm. I don’t know, I’ll keep working on it…
Thanks for listening to me gripe.
Shawn
Hey, Google+ users, circle me! (If you’re not on G+ yet, check it out. It’s great!)
do you mean the super serum
No, the super-soldier serum is a well-known aspect of Captain America, and it’s a common element of the “super soldier” archetype. I don’t want to specify the plot element I’m talking about here, because I don’t want to spoil the movie or our comic, but it will reveal itself fairly soon.
Regardless, I definitely like what I’ve seen out of the Specialists so far. WWII really has only been used in a superheroic setting a couple of times (not counting Sgt. Rock and the Invaders), and it’s nice to see a slightly different spin. Besides, when you get right down to it, the movie had Cap and the SSR up against Red Skull and Hydra (not exactly the Allies vs the Axis Powers).
Thanks, Wade! I’m sure I’m more self-conscious about it that I need to be. I tend to over-think things.
Sorry to tell you, but the “vampire-only-feeds-on-nazis” theme has already been used. A few months ago, SyFy channel’s series “Sanctuary,” which deals with Cryptid-type animals, mysterious beings and so on, did a Memorial Day WW-2 themed special and one of the characters was… guess what. [Either way, that idea would have kind of detracted from the whole idea/ideal here.]
Keep up the great work!
Man, even my joke ideas have already been taken! Thanks, 999999999!
And I’m sure that if you tried hard enough, you could compare your strip to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Kevin Bacon.
My wife does oil painting, and it’s interesting to see how it’s very different than photography. It’s fascinating to watch her paint, see how she takes the elements from the photo and makes them work in her painting, and how a perfect photo can make a lousy painting. You look for different things in different mediums.
You can simplify anything down to essentials and say why it’s the same as something else. But just like in painting, the key to an enjoyable read is artistry, taking those elements and making them yours. This comic has artistry.
Wow, thank you, Brian! That’s high praise!